Turned
by CoffeeWench
Summary: Exploring life after the Fischer job.  Think back story, relationships, and the slow build toward something good.
1. Chapter 1

Consider this a story told in a series of vignettes. They're not quite in linear order; be warned.

Nolan and allathem own what's recognizable. This is for fun.

* * *

"Give it one year," he said, all solemn eyes and sharp cheekbones; in this mood, there was nothing there on which to hang an emotion. "It's not likely anyone will contact you for a job besides us, yet, and we're keeping it under wraps for Cobb's sake." When Ariadne nodded at this, though frowningly, a faint look of approval passed over Arthur's face. "If you want to work in this field, you need to make sure it's what you want, to the exclusion of everything else."

A moment's thought ate up a few seconds of the warm, fuzzy silence of the expensive hotel room they were in. The sounds of the street outside were merely faint impressions being swallowed up by sturdy carpet and two-layered curtains. Ariadne's voice pushed through the quiet: "How do I contact you, then?"

"Here." One huge, long-fingered hand pulled a business card from some inner pocket; the satiny off-white linen-rag paper was heavy in her hand and bore the embossed name of an anonymously named law firm in New York City. At her questioning glance, Arthur's lips quirked into a quick, deprecating smirk, and his eyes rolled heavenward. "Eames. Just leave your name – nothing else. I'll get back to you."

She almost asked how before remembering how ludicrous the question would be. Instead, she asked, "What if I make my decision early?"

"Don't."

"Oh, helpful, Arthur." She was gently derisive – not as trenchant as Eames, but the rolled eyes and smirk got her message across.

Arthur's shoulders sagged a bit when he leaned back into the almost-comfortable armchair across from Ariadne's; he averted his eyes. "Remember what it's cost Cobb. Think about what it'll cost you, being so young." Her glare went unnoticed. "Consider. Think. Wait."

He rose, the fine wool of his three-piece hissing softly as it settled into its familiar, clean lines. With considerably less grace, Ariadne stood, too, and followed him to the door.

"That's it, then?" Aware of how needy it sounded, embarrassed but defiant in her right to ask, Ariadne shifted her weight and continued, "All of you – you crazy bastards – you're in my life for two months, and then I go back to charrettes and form-Z, and that's it?"

Amused now, Arthur tucked his hands into his trouser pockets, one clearly fisting around a loaded die. "Anyone can do anything for a year," he said. "It'll be over before you know it."

When Ariadne, after a pause, lunged forward and wrapped him in a firm, self-conscious hug, Arthur froze for just a moment. Quickly, lightly, knowing he'd lose the chance if he hesitated longer, he brought his hands out of their pockets and up and behind her. A light pull forward, one of his hands covering each scapula, kept Ariadne from retreating in embarrassment. He, with the memory of Eames' voice in his head urging him to dream big, finally got his arms 'round her and gave her the friendliest, least threatening hug he could muster.

Then he released her with a pat on the shoulder, one backward look, and left the room.


	2. Chapter 2

The first of out-of-temporal-order chapters. You'll catch up - you're smart.

Nolan, etc., own the recognizable bits.

* * *

They perched nervously on those rocks, and the summer-warm riverwater drained out of their shoes, pushed out by gravity and the comparatively cold rain of Yusuf's subconscious. The dreamer-chemist was several yards west of Arthur and Ariadne, his gaze flicking between the gun-toting figures on the bridge, Fischer and Eames on the bank below, and the place in the water where Cobb should have surfaced.

Arthur's face, lined with worry and the barest beginnings of age, was still turned toward that point near the middle of the river.

To distract him, Ariadne asked, "What next?"

"What?" Distant, worried, he did not turn.

"You guys didn't tell me what we're doing once we get off the plane. I wasn't supposed to come, remember?"

This time, he did turn, irritated in his worry. "What? Right. Damn." He palmed his face and scrubbed once, twice, from hairline to chin and back. It pulled his hair into disorder briefly before he furrowed it back into place with tense fingers. "Another point-man job is debriefing everyone, getting everyone secure." Arthur's face crumpled into worry and guilt. "That's something I should've done. I'm sorry. Do you have a reservation somewhere?"

"Hilton Garden Inn – El Segundo."

Approval took the place of worry for a moment. "Fake name?" Ariadne told him, and the gaze of approval solidified. He nodded. "I'll find you there."

The alarm on the drawbridge sounded again as the raised section began to sink back into place. The commonplace noise did not draw Robert Fischer's attention as he outlined to the disguised Eames the beginnings of his plans for his new life. Arthur and Ariadne turned apprehensively only to see everyday activity resume on the bridge; the projections ignored the gap broken into the railing, and no one observed the five figures sitting on the bank of the river in the rain.

They sat for who knows how long. The rain continued. The projections ignored. Fischer spoke. Dream-time folded on itself over and over, and the rest of the week passed between the words "my" and "father" as that familiar section of "_Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien_" began to play.

Fischer kept speaking, but Eames – now clearly Eames – whipped 'round and found Arthur and Ariadne with horrified eyes.

"Where's Cobb?" Tight, rising panic sent Arthur's voice up an octave. "_Where's Cobb?"_ His hand easily made a painful fist around Ariadne's arm just above the elbow, and he shook her.

In one moment, Ariadne turned to Arthur, the rain suddenly stopped, and in the abrupt near-silence – Edith Piaf notwithstanding – they heard a splash and an insistent:

_BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP_

And they woke.

Ariadne sucked in a panicked breath through her nose and had just enough presence of mind to jerk her head forward only an inch. Even as little as two weeks ago, she'd have been out of her seat and shaking Cobb, no matter the cost.

Still, she looked. Around her the others were stirring. And then Cobb looked, too.


	3. Chapter 3

Nolan, et al. owns the recognizable bits. I'm doing this for fun.

* * *

Six weeks later, Miles picked up a ringing cell phone, regretting the day he'd handed the number out to so many students. Why hadn't he turned the bloody thing off was what he wondered. It was so easy to forget in his bittersweet, contented retirement that he still had loose ends to tie up. That seemed to be wholly Dom's responsibility nowadays.

A glance at the display had him nearly breaking the phone to get it open. "Ariadne?"

"Hi, professor."

"It's Miles now, my girl." They passed several minutes in inane small talk, asking after each other's health, her impending graduation, Dom and the children. All, it seemed, was well.

A pause. Miles sighed painfully. "I'm so grateful you're –"

"Still with us?"

"Yes."

Dom was standing in the doorway that linked the living room and the kitchen, and Miles did not know how long he'd been there. Stuck between guilt and protectiveness, the older man stared flatly at his son-in-law. Dom mouthed the girl's name, and Miles nodded quellingly.

"Profe- Miles. I need to know more about shared dreaming."

His brows snapped together – he could feel the hairs mingling over the bridge of his nose – and he growled, "Now, do _not_ get mixed up in this. Once was enough. You did the impossible, now let it be."

Patiently, Ariadne reminded him, "You introduced us. I'm already mixed up."

"Too right you're 'mixed up'," he sighed, cradling his forehead in one hand, and Dom crept up and crouched before his father-in-law.

"Why more?" he asked. Did she not understand that he'd lost his daughter to this, that he'd nearly lost Dom? Had Dom told her? Couldn't she guess at the cost, smart as she was?

"I can't let go of the ideas."

He shut his eyes in pain.

Ariadne was still talking. "Arthur said to wait a year to see if I still felt like this. It's only gotten worse in a month and a half. If he offered a job right now, I'd take it. And that scares me."

_Not just you, _he carefully avoided saying.

"I need more information. I need to research."

Research. That implied critical thinking; it implied a window in which he could keep her safe. Miles considered. Through the agony of his loss and his fear of losing more, Miles realized that she would find out what "more" there was with or without his help. Better _with,_ as far as he was concerned, thank you very much.

He, ever honorable, asked, "Do you want to speak to Dom?"

"No. Not yet."

Miles felt his frown relax, his brows unknit, and he watched Dom's face crumpled into confusion.

"What would you like to know, my dear?"


	4. Chapter 4

You'll catch on.

Nolan and allathem own the recognizable bits; I don't.

* * *

From several yards back, Eames saw the look on Miles' face, the subtle slump of Cobb's shoulders just before the men shook hands. Fischer had just turned with his suitcase when Arthur passed him, pushing a loaded trolley. The prominent blue eyes skittered across Arthur's face, registering a faint familiarity and discarding it in a single movement.

Eames fell into step a few people later, joining the mass funneling out into the California sun. Cobb and his father-in-law were quite gone, and Eames let them fade from the forefront of his attention. Fischer and his driver peeled off toward those executive avenues that got a man out of the airport quicker than the Great Unwashed. He, too, dropped in importance in Eames' mind until he needed to be important again.

Bumping shoulders with a long-legged blonde and apologizing most charmingly, Eames tailed Ariadne a little longer while watching Arthur march his luggage and that stick up his arse out of the airport. The boy would contact Eames in a couple of days, after those dearly bought seven digits dropped into his Swiss account. Ariadne sent one glance – Eames thought it was wistful – in Arthur's direction before she headed to a car-rental counter.

He caught up to her before she reached the front of the queue.

"Catch a cab with me, darling?" Turning the dial way up – nearly to the point of farce – on the flirtation, Eames stuck out a hand to shake.

Quick as you please, the girl tilted her head and smiled, the picture of charmed, guarded curiosity. She shook his hand and replied, "I might do that. What way are you headed, Mr. …"

"Bishop. Thomas Bishop."

She smirked at that. Quick, clever girl. Eames admired her.

"Annie Kaylor."

Eames rattled off the name of a hotel, they agreed to split the fare and were in the taxi within five minutes.

Once there, he leaned over and murmured, "When's Arthur to debrief you, then?"

"Tomorrow. Eames, is this normal?" she asked, whispering. "I was under the impression we're supposed to be strangers for a long time, to keep under the radar."

"Ol' stick-in-the-mud give you that idea, did he?" Eames wiggled his eyebrows, smiling when the girl went pink. "Usually, yes," he answered, taking pity. "But since when do I listen to him, hey?"

Her glare was equal parts question and admonishment. She must've picked it up from Arthur himself. Eames wondered if she were aware of how much she was giving away.

"Do you know what to do with an off-shore bank account full of not-necessarily-legal money, Ariadne?"

Her expression said, "No," and Eames invited himself over to her hotel, explaining how he was going to help her avoid rookie mistakes. He rather hoped that he'd take long enough to be there still when Arthur showed.


	5. Chapter 5

Nolan, etc., own the movie/characters.

* * *

While on the phone with Ariadne – the first conversation had gone on for more than two hours – Miles took suggestions from Dom via messy notes scrawled on napkins. At first, the older man had waved off the younger, reminding him _sotto-voce _that Miles had been one of the leading developers of this technique, so would Dom please shove off?

However, Dom's interjections were pertinent, and on the second call, he joined them on speakerphone. Miles had insisted that his wife, Jeanne, occupy the children. The long-suffering woman had glared at both men and led the kids off to the swing set.

They'd gone over what Miles remembered of the content of a few dozen top-secret classified military documents concerning neurochemicals and the dream state. "Gamma waves this, and dopamine that," as Ariadne had dismissed them. Miles had ended that phone call with the admonishment that she go to the library and study up on the inner workings of the brain.

"And see to it you cross-reference addiction while you're at it," was what he left her with before flipping the phone shut.

Dom gazed at Miles with tired blue eyes. The dark circles beneath them had faded somewhat, and the former extractor was gaining a bit of weight in his idle fatherhood, but these were all to the better in Miles' opinion. Dom was plenty wealthy; let him get comfortable in reality again for the sake of James and Philippa.

"I see what you're trying to do, you know. You're not going to deter her, Miles."

"I'm going to do my level best." All the possible tragedies that could come – that had already happened – hung in the air between them over the dark, well-worn oak table.

Dom was toying with his totem, not spinning the top but shifting it between his fingers. "Let her learn from our mistakes. The desire's there, and she's a determined young person. She's going to go forward anyway."

Pushing away from the table and heading to the Brew Central on the counter, Miles grunted. "I'm merely arming her with the knowledge of the risks."

"She knows them, Miles!"

Miles' tone did not change from exhausted worry: "She knows _your_ risks, Dom. She knows what happens when guilt coincides with projections." The mug filled slowly with a brew so strong it could peel paint. "I want her to know about the biology. One doesn't hand a drunk two fingers of scotch and expect him to make the smart decision, now does one?"

Without waiting for an answer, he leveled a steely gaze at his son-in-law and added, "If she must continue playing God in the dreamworld, then surely she can do so without becoming a thief, as well."

At that, Dom stood, all careful control and guilty fragility. "I am never going to let her use it for _fun_," he insisted, leaning forward with balled fists. His eyes went tight around the edges, and his nostrils flared. "That's how I – we – got into limbo the first time. We – we were there with no other purpose than to _see what we could do_." Dom visibly pulled his calm back around him; it took a full thirty seconds. "Ariadne _must_ have a purpose for shared dreaming, or she has to stay away from it. Forever. No compromise."

And there, Miles and Dom agreed.


	6. Chapter 6

Nolan, et al., own _Inception_.

This may be one of the few chapters that's temporally in line with its predecessor. Enjoy it.

* * *

Eames had approved of Miles' caution, much to Ariadne's irritation.

At her annoyed huff over the phone – a pay phone halfway across Paris, different from the last one she'd used two weeks previous – Eames had laughed, "You'd do well to understand your material. You don't go mucking about with new software without reading instructions or taking a tutorial, now do you?"

Ariadne's embarrassed silenced answered him, and Eames suddenly went sharp:

"Well, you're bloody well not doing it in _this_ case, understand? No trial-and-error with your grey matter – if you do, I'll find you, take you over my knee and give you a walloping you'd remember if you haven't scrambled your brains by then."

Though he clearly wanted her to giggle – and she did – Ariadne knew that Eames was deadly serious. Her smile went crooked at the realization that Eames cared.

"And then I'll sic Arthur on you," he threatened, surprising a loud laugh from her. Around her sniggers, Eames insisted, "Seriously, he is the boring bogeyman. I threaten my son with him all the time."

This gave Ariadne pause. "I didn't know you had a son." Her hand went up to her neck, pulling loose the end of a summerweight scarf.

"What – you didn't think I was making a family up when I was bawling out Cobb on that last level, did you?"

Laughing again, and twisting the end of her scarf around her forefinger, Ariadne answered, "You flirt like an undergrad, Eames. It didn't enter my mind that you had bred."

"Yes, well, I'm happily married, but I use the talents God gave me to do my job." His voice dropped a few pitches, and Ariadne could hear the teasing smile in his voice when he warned, "And if you use that to ruin my work in dreams, I'll do something worse than sic Arthur on you."

"Oh, really?"

"Yes, really."

Her silence invited his answer. What, oh what could be worse in Eames' opinion than too much Arthur-time? Ariadne blushed hard enough for her face to prickle, and she brushed a forefinger across her mouth.

"I will _never_ sic him on you!"

And he laughed until she'd finished calling him every dirty name she could think of.

"How – how'd you – guess?" Ariadne demanded, hiding one burning cheek in one hand while cooling the other against the glass of the phone booth. She reared her head back once she began wondering what kind of diseases she might be picking up. A quick glance around revealed that none of the bustling city dwellers had noticed a thing. A steady stream of humanity kept issuing from the nearest Metro stop; she was invisible.

"People are my business, darling. Now, whatever will you do to keep your secret safe?" Eames teased, his voice tinny with distance and rich with amusement.

Ariadne scoffed, "It would serve my purposes better if you told him anyway. Save me the trouble."

"Ah-ah! Don't bluff with _me_, my girl!" And a thought occurred to Eames. "Have you called him yet? On the New York number – the one on my card?"

When she admitted she hadn't, he wanted to know why. Ariadne went back to fiddling with the end of her scarf. Arthur had been clear about her waiting a year – insistent, in fact. She was certain he would be all gentle disapproval if he even returned her call in the first place.

"Two thoughts, darling: You won't know if you don't try. And he'll be hurt if you don't include him in your 'research interviews', you know."

"Oh, how would you know?" She thumped the glass of the phone booth with one fist; a pigeon strutting just on the other side didn't so much as pause.

"I told you: People are my business."


	7. Chapter 7

Nolan, et al., own _Inception,_ not me.

And seriously, I know people who are smart, funny, and a little jerky who are really brilliant family people. You can be awesome and not be a womanizer - just saying.

* * *

While punching the last of fourteen digits into a disposable cell phone, Eames thought that for a fastidious, uptight git, Arthur had good taste. If Eames weren't the father of a four-year-old and the husband of a quietly brilliant redhead with amazing eyes, he'd have happily overlooked an eight-year age difference and launched a serious attempt to pursue Ariadne. She was a bright, pretty young thing full of fierce determination with a sparkling laugh that got mixed up with nervous embarrassment when Eames ripped on Arthur.

Besides the family that kept Eames in check, the girl was utterly disinterested, and she laughed at every outrageous flirtation; Eames was just a bit huffy over the fact. Christ in heaven, she probably thought of him as a brother. Or worse, an uncle!

And, of course, as much as he teased Arthur – and good God, what an easy target! – Eames did respect him. They traded insults, but since they'd known each other for a decade and worked together at least once every year, it was hard for the pair to actively hate one another. Point was, Eames recognized territorial behavior when he saw it, and if he were right about all of that glaring Arthur had done during the Fischer job – and Eames was _never_ wrong – then the Point Man was deeply interested in their little architect.

Eames snorted into the mouthpiece of the phone while waiting for the voicemail to pick up. The noise carried only to his ear through the phone; the crowded pub overlooking a particularly polluted stretch of the Thames wouldn't have let a bellow past the shrieks of laughter and roars of outrage, let alone a little snort.

_And Arthur, in all his neurotic glory, is doing fuck-all about it,_ Eames thought. Worse, Arthur wasn't even actively pushing Ariadne away, because that would reveal too much emotion. The boy was merely setting her aside until he'd loftily decided that it was safe for her to come play … you know, if she wanted … and was still there.

The voicemail clicked on, a pre-recorded New York accent telling him he'd reached the phone number beginning with 212, and would he please leave a message, and Messrs. Johannes, Fields or Stone would return his call at the earliest possible moment?

"You're getting a call in the next two days," Eames drawled in his very best Irritate Arthur Tone (Version No. 4). "Return it, you great, neurotic knob."

After a moment's pause he added through a grin, "And I wouldn't object to trading a few barbs with you myself, if you feel equal to it. Don't make me come find you, hey?"


	8. Chapter 8

Nolan, et al., own _Inception._

* * *

"Why are we even pretending to stick to protocol anymore?"

Cobb smiled at the irritation in Arthur's voice. He quietly excused himself from the after-supper viewing of _Jeopardy!_ and stepped out into the cool, almost-autumn air on the porch.

"It sounds like you've been in contact with Eames recently, Arthur," he chuckled. Intense irritation was the only reason Cobb could think of for Arthur's ignoring his own safeguards. The younger man had always insisted that the teams for which he'd been point man not contact one another for at least six months after a job. Ariadne's one-year restriction was unprecedented, but then you don't induct raw beginners into extraction teams – and take them into the mark's mind on their first job, either – every day, do you?

"Ariadne, actually."

That took Cobb aback for a moment. Without answering, he stepped forward, gazing solemnly over the hilly valley over which his home looked.

"Care to tell me why she's been talking to _everyone_ – thank Miles for me, by the way, would you? – about a highly addictive, potentially deadly _criminal lifestyle_?" The sarcasm roughened Arthur's voice, and Cobb frowned to hear it.

Sharp now, Cobb answered, "I don't hear _you_ complaining too loudly about the legality of extraction, Arthur. And Ariadne didn't exactly object."

"She's a kid!"

"She's younger than you by _only_ three years and older than you were when you started out. She's paid fines and was on probation for illegal file-sharing and teenage drug use. She's not exactly an innocent, and do I have to repeat all the research you did on her in March?"

When fuming silence answered him, Cobb leaned his hips against the sturdy railing of the porch, struggling to regain his calm. The windows were open to the cooling air, and he could hear commercials going on in the living room – no need to alert the family to a fight he wasn't even supposed to be having. He crossed his free arm under the other.

"Look, I know better than anyone how Ariadne is when she wants to know something," he said heavily, leaning sideways to rest against a pilaster.

The silence sank between the two men, between three time zones, as each remembered Cobb's strained, shamed confession to Arthur a month ago. Cobb still wasn't sure Arthur had forgiven him for keeping the secret of the first Inception for so long. Arthur wasn't sure, either.

Cobb finally broke the silence, the words rising past his throat in a thick, unwilling glob: "She's smart – you said it yourself, and you don't praise lightly. She's stubborn and has a goal. All we can do is give her so much information that she won't make the decision ignorantly." Sourly, he added, "Besides, Miles is on your side."

Finally, Arthur spoke again. "_Miles_ is totally _against_ it." His tone spoke of insult, of argument.

"You're not?" Cobb asked, frowning. He straightened from his slump.

Uncomfortable, unwilling, Arthur said, "Her talents are wasted anywhere else."

An idea – one not so new because he'd observed quick glances and shy smiles even in his obsessed frenzy – came to Cobb. He wanted to encourage his friend, who had been effectively alone for half a decade as far as he was aware. But he also wanted to urge caution, because who needed the shade of another woman lost to dream-sharing threatening his loved ones? Instead, he advised, "So educate her."

"I can't let my interests influence her decision, Cobb," Arthur admonished, half-horrified that Cobb would suggest it.

"Well, someone's got to counteract Miles."

That got a laugh.

The screen door creaked open behind Cobb, and he turned a little guiltily, hoping Miles hadn't heard the last bit.

"Daddy?"

James' little blond head was peeking around the edge of the door, and he stumbled out onto the porch, his tiny Tevos catching the threshold. "Grandma says come get you, it's late, you're being rude and can't it wait and _honestly_," the boy reported in that breathless, strung-together way children had.

Repressing a frown, Cobb answered a little defiantly, "It's Uncle Arthur."

"_Uncle Arthur?"_ James shrieked, rocketing forward. From the living room, Cobb heard his daughter repeat the name; the sound of a running five-year-old followed.

On the other end of the line, Arthur laughed quietly. The Cobbs had let him into their lives many years ago, and the children had fond memories of the tall, staid young man who submitted to piggy-back rides and baked cookies.

Cobb turned on the speakerphone function and sat with one child in each arm on the porch; his friend and his children spent several minutes lobbing questions at each other. The kids elaborated excitedly, talking over one another and barely avoiding squabbling over control of the conversation. Arthur's answers failed to satisfy them, as most adults' answers do; the necessary, practiced lies came out smoothly.

After the third demand of "When are you coming to visit?", Cobb interrupted, "Miles has been talking of taking us to Paris." He ignored the sudden silence from the other end of the phone; indeed, it was hardly noticeable over James and Philippa's squeals. "You should drop by the loft."

After a pause, Arthur asked the children if he could speak to their father alone, and they only allowed it once they'd extracted his promise to visit them in France.

"Convenient. Having the kids there," he accused, half-laughing, half-sullen.

"Pure serendipity, Arthur, believe me."

The younger man muttered, "Don't manipulate me, Cobb." The hurt was clear, but Cobb was surprised by the absence of anger.

"I'm not. I'm not going to force a meeting you don't want. You have to do whatever it is you're going to do." Cobb levered himself to his feet with a grunt. In the tones of a man trying to get in the last word, he added, "Just remember that you didn't like being coddled early on, either. She's not going to thank you for trying to protect her."

A sigh was all the response he got. Cobb gave Arthur the address and date for their Paris rendezvous and bid him goodnight.


	9. Chapter 9

Nolan, et al., own _Inception._

* * *

His team had the most atrocious timing, Eames thought, considering that they'd run off to God knows where, after he'd gone to the trouble of stopping to pick up croissants for them. And they'd left Arthur to hold down the fort, because God forbid the point man take a break for five minutes. So either they had really bad timing, or they had an unhealthy fascination with schadenfreude.

But Eames, himself a connoisseur of human misfortune, just wasn't in the mood for it today, even if it did allow him access to Arthur's vulnerable ego. The team were waiting for old Fischer to pop off, and while stress did make picking at the boy's stoicism that much more satisfying, Eames had gotten his fill last evening, thanks.

Besides the results were better with an audience. Hardly worth the effort, now.

This in mind, Eames approached the desk where Arthur sat tipped back on two legs of a brushed stainless steel chair. He consciously refrained from kicking Arthur out of balance and perched on the edge of his desk instead, disarranging a neat stack of color-coded files.

Arthur flicked his gaze away from the screen of his laptop, took in the scattered pages and pointedly looked back at the monitor. "Eames," he acknowledged. If possible, his sharply carved face went even craggier with the exertion of self-control.

"Where's everyone gone, hey?" Eames shook the largeish white-and-red striped paper bag he held in his left hand. "I've brought breakfast."

"They just left for the same thing, actually." Arthur smirked just a little at this, not quite smug but appreciating the irony.

"They didn't fancy dragging your sanctimony around with them to _le bistro,_ then?"

The pleased look shifted back into a glower. Arthur answered, "I'm keeping tabs on Fischer Sr.'s condition." The smirk returned. "They're bringing me something back. With _coffee._"

"And a pretty girl to bring it, hey?"

"Cute, Eames."

"Mm, yes, I suppose she _is_," Eames laughed.

Glower. "That is not what I meant."

Eames laughed again, but this time because the point man's face was going just a touch red. He shook open the bag of croissants and held it out toward Arthur, whose frown was probably going to stick if he didn't find a reason to shift it. And really, that'd be a bit off-putting to a nice young architect who was bringing him coffee, now wouldn't it?

The point man took a croissant and raised it to Eames in salute.

Eames sauntered off to his own desk. Maybe he'd immerse himself in Browning's character, just to practice. Maybe not.


	10. Chapter 10

_Inception_ belongs to Nolan, et al.

Out of temporal order again. Y'all're smart. You get it.

* * *

Piggyback rides. The Cobb children _loved_ piggyback rides, and the open floor plan of Professor Miles Thigpen's Paris loft was a perfect venue. Ariadne had clambered over almost every horizontal surface that looked like it would bear her weight. Twice. Luckily, Miles and his brittle French wife, Jeanne, had permitted this; luckily, also, they had very sturdy furniture.

Philippa, being a week away from turning six, was a bossy, sanctimonious thing who graciously allowed three-year-old James the first two rides. James was still young enough view his sister as some lesser god, second only to his father and grandfather; he was outgoing but biddable. Ariadne developed a sudden and nostalgic ache for her older siblings' children and was easily convinced to be the horse of the evening. Even when this triggered an eardrum-rupturing dual squeal of delight, Ariadne saw Jeanne's sharp features relax into amused approval.

_Yeah. Mark one up for the American girl._

The children chattered at her in English, telling her to "go under the table!" and "jump _over_ the armchair!" and "faster, faster, faster!" They bickered with each other in French, earning a sharp reprimand from Jeanne. When Ariadne urged them to mind their _grand-mère_ in the same tongue_,_ they began demanding even greater feats of acrobatics from her in both languages. They even complimented her accent.

_This is not quite what I envisioned_, she reflected while highstepping herself onto a chaise lounge, a kicking James clinging to her like a baby monkey. She had rather expected a light French meal featuring a savory crepe with a glass of dry red wine on a balcony; she'd have had polite conversation with the whole family until late, when Jeanne would've taken the kids to bed, leaving the rest to enjoy coffee and more dream-sharing shoptalk. Instead, she was getting a killer stocking-footed aerobic workout while her former boss, her former professor and his wife all stood by recording the spectacle on smartphones.

After about three-quarters of an hour, Ariadne had ended the games, pleading old age; only when she promised to read them a bedtime story at the end of the night did James and Philippa consent to wash their hands before supper.

"Well," Cobb said, lowering himself onto the couch next to a slumped, wheezing architect, "You handle people better than anyone I know."

"Pfft. I'm no Eames," was her dry retort.

He laughed. "He _knows_ how to do it better than you, but he _doesn't_ do it. It comes so easily to him that he gets bored. Eames, I think, gets off a little bit on causing trouble and then swooping in to fix it, just because he can."

With a snort and an incredulous stare, Ariadne drawled, "So, eventually, he's going to try to fix Arthur?"

This got a laugh from both Cobb and Miles, and even Jeanne smirked.

Miles answered, "Siblings quarrel about behaviors, but the world would end if one's brother truly _changed_." He and Jeanne took seats as well, she on an armchair and he on the chaise lounge. Leaning with one arm on the headrest, he added, "I've met Mr. Eames only once, more than seven years ago, but the way he and Arthur bickered made me grateful that Dom doesn't have two boys."

With one eyebrow highly arched, Ariadne replied, "You wait till Philppa hits puberty."

As though summoned, Philippa and James tumbled back into the living room, complaining that the adults were delaying supper with all their talking. In short order, with a little assistance from the children, Miles and Jeanne had platefuls of hearty sandwiches on crusty bread on the dining room table.

Though the evening did not involve any further references to dream-sharing or extraction – though it in no way resembled the evening Ariadne had envisioned – it was warm and caring, and it inspired Ariadne to call her family once she'd gotten home. And although her curiosity was not satisfied, neither about dream-sharing nor about the personal lives of these men – these friends – the invitation to brunch the next day left her with a feeling of gratitude she'd never had before.


	11. Chapter 11

Nolan, et al., own _Inception._

Two things: The good thing about movies not fleshing out characters as they deserved to be fleshed out is that it leaves a bajillion opportunities for them to live rich lives in fan works. And the romance part is coming, I swear._  
_

* * *

"What are your plans after this?"

The question, posed in laborious, heavily accented English, startled a yelp from Ariadne. She turned to see Saito standing – carefully casual, with his hands in his pockets – just at the edge of her workspace. She set her craft knife down on her table out of courtesy.

Tucking some dangling hair behind her ear, Ariadne replied, "I dunno. Finish school, I guess." With her usual shuffle of sneakered feet, she added wryly, "I mean, it'll look weird if I drop out a month before graduating and can still manage to keep a Paris apartment, you know?"

Saito approached, acknowledging her answer with a polite smile. "I mean in the longer term, Miss Moore." He leaned against her desk, close enough to continue speaking quietly, but far enough away – Ariadne suspected – to avoid triggering her more klutzy nervous tics. "You are talented; it is easy to see in the dreams. And Mr. Cobb tells me you are by far his superior as an architect." Saito flicked a precise gesture at the piles of foam board and glue littering the worktable. "What are your plans after _this?_" he repeated.

When she admitted that she didn't know, Saito nodded. And it was only because she was watching so closely, paying attention so earnestly, that she caught the flicker of knowing exasperation that crossed his face – _Kids these days,_ it seemed to say, _never thinking ahead._

"Once you finish your education," he said, "You will submit an application through my Web site –" and he rattled it off, as if she hadn't wheedled what she could out of Arthur about their client – "Your name will be flagged, and the application will make it to my desk."

Ariadne's mouth worked in wordless astonishment for a moment.

Saito nodded, satisfied. "If you want legitimate work, something you can put on a resume, something that will give you the people skills – the _business_ skills the rest of your team has, then I can get it for you."

He left when she faintly thanked him. Ariadne heard his hard-soled shoes tap across the warehouse's floor; he stopped a moment to speak with Arthur, but the echoing room rendered the words indistinct.

Taking a deep breath, Ariadne turned back to her work. The second-level dream was undergoing revisions, Arthur having insisted that she add a few more hidey-holes and blind turns. Ariadne positioned her old, pitted, stained T-square on a half-used piece of foam board. Without looking, she reached out, picked up the craft knife, and began to work.

It didn't register that she had left it comfortably within reach; it didn't occur to her until later, just before the flight, that the dreams were teaching her to be cautious and to keep all potential weapons close by.


	12. Chapter 12

Nolan, et al., own _Inception._

I keep promising romance in future; it is coming. But this is listed as 'friendship/romance' - or whatever order it's in - and I want to really explore the characters. You do that best by defining their relationships, I think, even in the smallest degrees.

* * *

Ariadne had been worried, fairly early into the Fischer job, that she would have trouble getting to sleep, or that she would stop being able to dream, like Cobb. She was worried about a physical addiction to the drugs they used in the PASIV; she was learning to become more afraid of a psychological addiction to all that shared dreaming was – the adventure, the companionship, the pure creation that had drawn her from the start.

Turns out, her assumptions were wrong again – they tended to be in this job. She was getting used to it.

In the shared-dream state, things were lucid and under control. Training sessions tended to jolt her awake with a violent death, and the briefings she'd led about the dream levels she'd built for Robert Fischer usually ended to the sounds of a beeping PASIV. When hooked up, barring interference from hostile projections, there was no building, cliff, or bridge Ariadne could go off of unless she intended and needed to. She generally avoided shooting herself; her teammates tended to, in fits of chivalry, take care of that for her when necessary.

Natural dreams, of course, were different. When curled up under her hypoallergenic comforter at home, even lucid dreaming slipped from her control, since it was a relatively new habit. When this happened, Ariadne woke every morning – or late night, or from every nap – with a jolt and a shuddering sigh. Every time she was a superhero in flight, the descent back to earth would kick her awake. Every balcony rail she leaned against to take in a view broke and threw her into freefall, kicking her awake. Every staircase – Pennrose or otherwise – triggered a tumble and kicked her awake. Even something as terrestrial as _dancing_ was just too much for her inner ear, and she came awake with a bounding heart rate in the low 140s.

She blamed the Fischer job. With all those missed kicks, and the straight-up visceral trauma of throwing herself off the edge of the Cobbs' limbo home, it was little wonder that she'd gotten hypersensitive to freefall.

The barest beginnings of this problem showed themselves in the week before Maurice Fischer's death; she'd chalked it up to stress. Similarly, the three months following the Fischer job were full of trauma-related disturbances. Her grades suffered some; her social life, nonexistent in the two months she was shared-dreaming, failed to fully recover. On balance, having dreams that weren't quite nightmares join the rotation of actual, get-shot-after-showing-up-naked-on-a-mountain-with-four-grown-men nightmares wasn't that surprising.

It wasn't until July that Ariadne realized that the nightmares had thinned – unofficial counseling from Miles and Cobb had been invaluable – and the normal dreams that gave her a kick with every shift from the vertical were still there. She still kept them to herself until September.

Dom – she was having trouble with his given name, still – shrugged it off. His experience had left him unable to dream on his own at all. Miles, for his part, was happy to use her confession as more ammunition to dissuade Ariadne from shared dreaming.

Arthur's response was the most meandering, ambiguous thing – full of "coulds", "potentiallys" and "on the other hands", and it left Ariadne wondering why she'd bothered to mention it to him. The two-hour long conversation had been fascinating and fairly entertaining – Ariadne always enjoyed speaking with Arthur – but it was as useful as scuba gear to a whale shark. Also, Arthur had easily evaded her attempts to find out how shared dreaming had affected him. All she could get from him was "Everyone's brain's different. Don't assume any experience will be the same for any two individuals."

Eames just laughed. She was getting used to it.


	13. Chapter 13

Nolan, et al., own _Inception._

Closer, yes?_  
_

* * *

In freshman year at SUNY, Ariadne had had a boyfriend named Nathan who'd had the habit of leading her about by pressing his palm into the space between her shoulder blades. Occasionally, the hand would drift up and almost grip the nape of her neck. It had irritated her beyond reason – she'd felt like livestock being herded – finally triggering a fight that would've made Gloria Steinem proud. Ariadne had since learned to moderate her language, because she figured changing minds was more effective without arguments; she began to see some behaviors as bad habits rather than calculated attacks, because sometimes that's all they were. But the week after she'd turned nineteen, Ariadne had "misogynist"ed, "dominating"ed and "dick"ed his hipster butt straight out of her life.

When, in the first week of training, Arthur began to guide her through mazes and paradoxes with gentle pressure in that deep spot in her spine's S-curve, Ariadne had instinctively gone rigid and just barely managed to avoid glaring at him.

Immediately, she regretted the reflex, for reflex it was, and unthinking. He withdrew – _Of course he did; it's _Arthur_, and he would notice the slightest change in body language, you idiot!_ – and without any acknowledgment of the alteration, began sweeping an upturned palm in the direction she was to go.

She stayed in the warehouse late that night under the pretense of altering the maze work for the second layer, claiming that inspiration had struck and would not be ignored. Instead, after the men had been gone more than an hour, Ariadne had just lain down on one of the lawn chairs with her coat draped over her lap. In later years, she would describe this night as one of deep thought and consideration; those who called it _conniving_ earned a thwap to the back of the head.

Her reasoning was this: Arthur was the point man for a reason. He did details. He noticed everything there was to be noticed. There was a real rationale behind his training her, and it involved his ability to pick out every flaw and make her fix it; granted, he was helpful and constructive in making her revise her work, but that was not important to Ariadne at present. What was important was that he saw the minute. Ariadne just knew that _he_ knew that _she_ had a crush on him; it was outside the realm of possibility that he'd missed it. He simply had not done anything to act on that knowledge.

_So I can go the usual route of 'he's just not that into you' – except that someone voluntarily touching you kind of shows the opposite, _she thought, curling into a more comfortable position on the lawn chair. And now, because Ariadne had not somehow gotten over her reflex response to a hand on the back, she'd probably, at worst, sent mixed signals._ So. Give up or press forward?_

When asked, Ariadne couldn't tell anyone when she'd made it to bed that night, but for the first and only time on the Fischer job, she was late the next day.


	14. Chapter 14

Nolan, et al., own _Inception_.

Happy holidays, whatever those happen to be, if they happen to be. I'm gonna go get myself into a fortnight-long food coma with my family.

* * *

Arthur stared down into his hands, which loosely clutched a large gutted envelope and a Christmas card. The card was handmade, a fine pencil drawing washed with watercolor in a range of blues. The drawing showed an elevation and two floor plans of a multilevel igloo; it had two floors, one maze, and three paradoxical pathways. There was an Eskimo taking a ride down a gravity-defying loop-the-loop slide. The Eskimo was smiling a lopsided smile.

It was at that moment that Arthur realized that Ariadne was never going to give up shared dreaming. He wasn't sure whether he was concerned or delighted. Arthur breathed in slowly twice, consciously not sighing. He traced the correct path through the maze with one long finger. It took him longer than it should've; Ariadne was that good.

She belonged in this business, she really did. An architectural talent that strong, paired with a mind that creative, had no place in reality. Outside of the dream, Ariadne would have to wait years for just one of her ideas to be allowed off the page, and any idea so allowed would be watered down into something tepid and unrecognizable. She didn't deserve that.

_Nor does she deserve to be shot at and pursued by people like Cobol,_ Arthur added mentally. He frowned and tapped the igloo card irritably against his left palm. _Nor be cut off from family and real friends by secrets too big and dangerous to be shared._

And yet, wasn't it too late? Didn't this card prove it _was_ too late? Ariadne was reminding him of what he himself had taught her in the dreams. Miles and Dom and he, himself, were responsible, if so. Hadn't she visited the Thigpens and Dom in the Paris flat daily for the week they'd been there – hadn't he skipped the visit for that very reason? Hadn't she strongarmed Dom into getting the card into Arthur's hands? What was this except hard evidence that she had taken the space and time Arthur had insisted on giving her to make a decision of this enormity and _just made it_?

So now she'd chosen. A good five months early, but this _was_ Ariadne, and she was making her choice clear. And she had proven time and again that she wouldn't be ignored. When one ignored Ariadne, she tended to make it impossible to continue.

Well. One could be both pleased and worried at once, couldn't one?

Arthur allowed himself one little selfishness with a slight nod; he smiled and leaned the card against a stack of folders next to his laptop and made a mental note to get Dom on the phone in the morning.


	15. Chapter 15

Nolan, et al., own _Inception._ But now, thanks to Christmas, I own two copies of it. Go fig.

It's coming, it's coming.

* * *

It had been as easy as she'd been told, which surprised the hell out of Ariadne.

The decision should please Arthur, once he found out about it.

In November, she'd made her decision, and by the first week of December, she was in Tokyo, one of a couple hundred junior administrative assistants. And she excelled, except when it came to speaking with confidence and controlling her curiosity.

The first, Saito assured her during one of their bimonthly meetings, would improve with her familiarity with a given subject. "You _flutter_," he said over a lunchtime Tom Collins, flicking his fingers once in a shorthand illustration of her bad habit. "Except when you are explaining a design. The rest of the time, you move too much."

Or she thought that's what he said. Another part of her training there was to gain a working knowledge of business-appropriate Japanese. It was… coming along. So Saito had critiqued her fidgeting. Probably.

The second was probably going to be her downfall, Ariadne believed. So far, her gleaning of information had not gotten her into trouble, but that didn't mean her luck would hold. When she thought seriously about it, she acknowledged that she wasn't likely to stumble upon anything without Saito's knowing about it well in advance. For all she knew, she was being subtly herded away from anything dangerous, salacious, personal, or intriguing. But that didn't stop Ariadne from listening, poker-faced, to conversations that people had nearby while assuming that the dumb foreigner couldn't understand a word.

By this method, Ariadne got a front-row seat to the first time Mrs. Saito had confronted one of her husband's mistresses at the headquarters of Proclus Global. She'd known, since the Fischer job, that Saito wasn't exactly keeping closely to the marriage bed; that kept her from admiring him too much, despite his status as "one bad-ass motherfucker," as Eames had admitted. So there was considerable satisfaction in watching the meltdown happening on the fourth floor. Ariadne, however, put to good use the training Saito and his company had given her – and the mimicry of Arthur's patient boredom she'd taken up – and watched the spectacle with only a raised eyebrow.

When, a week later, Saito informed her without explanation of her promotion to personal assistant to one of his VPs, one Yara Hayao, she took it as a nod to her circumspection. If she could even minutely impress Saito, then she could change Arthur's mind and bring some new skills to the table, to boot.

"Take that," she muttered into empty air.


	16. Chapter 16

Nolan, et al., own _Inception_.

* * *

Given that Ariadne had left off her campaign to join the world of extraction a little early and had moved on to get some professional training, _Apprentice_-style, from Saito, it only made sense that Arthur would pop up with a job in the first week of February.

"It's just a brief engagement," he warned. His stern, concerned frown, somehow made audible, came through the staticky cell connection undiminished in its severity; his voice, though, was smooth and almost caressing. "One hook-up, and then I'd go on alone."

Ariadne decided not to comment on his word choice – _Honestly, "hook-up." Ha. _ – and managed not to snicker. She did smirk, though, wondering when she had reverted to age fifteen. She understood that he couldn't give details over the phone; anyone listening in for any reason wouldn't be able to say with certainty that she and Arthur weren't just planning a tryst. The words "job" and "work" weren't even used; he'd opened the call with "I've got a proposition for you."

"We'd have to wait for me to get off work. I'm busy until at least five, and it takes a solid hour for me to get home." Her apartment was only on the south side of Tokyo, but rush-hour trains were rush-hour trains in any city.

"Let's do dinner. See you at your place," he said, not waiting for an answer. He hung up, and Ariadne was left staring in amusement at her phone. She was embarrassed to admit that she felt a bit flattered that he hadn't had to ask where she lived; she laughed at herself for still feeling a faint surprise when Arthur would pop up with details like that. Ariadne let herself off the hook, because these were emotional responses, not rational ones, and she'd be damned if she were going to punish herself for having emotions.

With a huff of laughter, Ariadne glanced around and began to pick up the clothes scattered around her apartment.


	17. Chapter 17

Nolan, et al., own _Inception._

* * *

At New Year's, Ariadne hosted Eames and his family in Tokyo. Miles had issued what had become a customary holiday invitation to Ariadne, but she was taking her time under Saito's wing seriously and wouldn't take the leave for it. Also, she'd thought that Arthur needed an opportunity to reconnect with Miles and the Cobbs; she had the impression that her visit in the fall had kept him away, and that made her very uncomfortable.

Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Eames arrived at Ariadne's apartment just after noon on December 29th with a very cranky four-year-old Christopher in tow. With the interest accruing from the Fischer job, Ariadne had made a point of getting an apartment with two bedrooms in addition to the bathroom and kitchen-space-cum-living room; it was tiny, but there were walls and a space for Eames to take his son for a nap.

Later that evening, they sat around the _kotatsu_ – the low, heated table in the middle of the apartment's common space that saved her untold amounts of money in heating – polishing off the cookies the Eameses had brought along.

Leaning back, with his long legs crossed underneath the futon that covered the _kotatsu_, Eames drawled, "You're wearing him down, you know."

His wife, Angelique, must've kicked him, because they both jolted away from one another, and Eames glared briefly at her. She turned her pencil eraser-down and began to saw away at a stray mark crossing the sketch she was making of Ariadne. Eames reached down and rubbed at whatever she'd kicked under the _kotatsu_.

"You're ruining the picture, love," she chided in a deceptively soft voice. "Now poor girl's got a unibrow going from temple to ear."

"Eeeeew," was Christopher's two cents, drawled from where he sat next to Ariadne. She had made friends with him by offering him Pocky, teaching him to call it "poke-y", which he then proceeded to do with the chocolate-dipped cookie sticks. Ariadne bore chocolate freckles all up and down her right forearm.

Christopher reared back a little, taking aim once more, and Ariadne fixed him with a cool stare. "If you do that again, I'm taking all the Pocky away, understand?" She used the Babysitter Voice that had made even headstrong Philippa wary.

To her astonishment, Christopher struck. Then, he began to wail, "HEEEEEYYY!" when she plucked the dessert from his hand and popped it into her mouth. With dark brown eyes wide and watering, Christopher turned to his father, hoping for support. All he got was a shrug.

"She warned you. Take your medicine like a man, m'boy."

When he appealed to his mother – "Muuuuum!" – she lifted one eyebrow and asked if he wanted to go to bed. With a sniff and great dignity, he stood up and stalked into the guest room. He even slid the door shut without attempting to slam it.

Eames sighed, "It's like I've another Arthur in my life."

Ariadne hooted, and even Angelique grinned. "How's that working out for you?" Ariadne demanded.

"I've got a facsimile of him; that's plenty." Reaching across and tweaking her nose, he added, "I've a friend wants more than a copy and hasn't got it." When she blushed and looked down, Eames continued. "I'm serious. You're wearing him down by just keeping in contact and refusing to be ignored. Better, you're doing it without being a stalker – proving that you want him rather than _need_ him, and he'll respect that."

"Augh! Personal much? Can you reword that a little, Eames?" Ariadne covered her burning face, earning a disapproving cluck from Angelique.

The redhead put down her pencil and reached to move Ariadne's hands. "You're beginning to be as fun to poke at as Arthur is, I'm afraid," she commented, her Afrikaans-flavored English doing little to hide her amusement. "You're only going make Thomas tease you more. My advice: Either grow a much thicker skin – one that does not blush so easily – or secure Arthur as soon as possible. Now sit still."

Obeying, but with a grimace, Ariadne retorted, "What are we? In an Austen novel? 'Secure him'. Honestly." She huffed in irritation.

"Don't scowl, dear," Eames chuckled. "It'll stick that way."


	18. Chapter 18

Nolan, et al. own _Inception._

Brief addition. More to come.

* * *

The third week of March was the third unseasonably warm week in a row, and the sakura were blooming.

Ariadne was avoiding the crowds.

Ariadne was avoiding pretty much everything.

The February job that Arthur had brought had gone off without a hitch as far as she knew. Meaning, the one "hook-up" had been professional and friendly and had involved a praiseworthy maze on her part and a long, focused period of memorization on his. The dinner beforehand had been a no-frills handmade thing of miso soup and fresh okonomiyaki. The tea afterward had been cozy and familiar; they had joked, and each of them had initiated contact in the course of the conversation – a gentle shove here, a brush of knees there, the occasional fumble over who would pour the tea next.

He'd left. She'd heard from Cobb the next week, congratulating her on her design. So, the job must have gone well. And she hadn't heard from Arthur since then. And she was feeling stupid and embarrassed. And she was avoiding pretty much everything.


	19. Chapter 19

Nolan, et al., own _Inception._

* * *

It was April. It was month prior to the given deadline. Ariadne, let us be blunt, did not care.

She called the New York number, she had to use the business card because she hadn't memorized the number, and she called that number with the pride of a wounded woman who had convinced herself that she was So Over It. She was even making the call just outside the Nishi-Shinjuku station, just before heading to Proclus Global's offices. She was planning to resign anyway; everything needed to change, and she was going to affect that change come Hell or high water.

She didn't even leave her name as Arthur had instructed her to.

"Get me a job. Don't argue with me."

He called her back within the hour.


	20. Chapter 20

Nolan, et al., own _Inception_.

* * *

"He laughed at me, Eames!"

Eames himself was not laughing this time. "He – The prat! I am a _perfectly_ good threat! And I'm an _excellent_ source of jobs!"

The pure, infantile petulance of his tone lifted Ariadne's spirits just a little. She twinkled at him over the rim of her cup of coffee. The brisk Italian breeze helped, too. She hadn't known she'd felt cramped in Tokyo until she'd left it. An amused Saito had bid her a polite farewell and thanked her for her work – at least she was pretty sure that was the gist of it; her Japanese was still not so good.

Eames fumed just a little more, his lips doing more justice to a pout than Ariadne had ever seen done in her life. He was looking a little leaner, more tired; when she'd asked him about it, he'd flapped a hand and muttered something about stress and the "home front". She figured she'd press him on the topic later.

"So how'd you end up on this last one then? Congratulations, by the way."

She grinned. "I threatened to go to Mombasa to see if Yusuf could help."

_This_ time, Eames laughed, driving away the seagulls who were kiting nearby in hopes of food.

"He had me on the plane within an hour."


End file.
